


Boom Goes the Music Box

by VintageVulpes



Series: Detroit: Civil War [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Almost NO Fluff Until the End, Angst, Canon language, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Other, PART THREE IN SERIES, Post-Canon, canon violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-25 11:27:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15639792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintageVulpes/pseuds/VintageVulpes
Summary: All of Hank's fears are transforming from a haunting paranoia to a dreadful reality as Connor's heart continues to fail and allies turn out to be enemies and enemies become allies.In this exciting third part to a four part series, picking up right where part two ended; North takes a larger part in the series, Glenn learns more about reviving deactivated androids, and Connor and Hank are forced apart for the first time since they became partners at the DPD. A diabolical plot is revealed but as the group, divided by difference of opinion but forced together out of necessity, will learn that there's far more than meets the eye very soon.





	Boom Goes the Music Box

******///**   **March 16th** , 2040  **///  
**           PM  **7:47  
**_CyberLife Headquarters_

**Connor**

Not being able to go with Hank, to have his back, was like torture for Connor as he was forced to lay on his back in a bed. He trusted Markus to protect him but that hardly consoled him as even Glenn got up, gun in hand, to peek out of the curtain and keep his eye on things-- he was the only one not able to help in this tense situation.

Connor jolted when suddenly he heard Hank’s furious tone of voice but found comfort in the fact that he was talking at all, let alone the fact that Glenn lowered his gun and went back to work while Markus came back with North and Hank in tow. Sitting up the best he could he looked between the three, at North, in surprise. “What’s going on?”

“Well, I-- what’s wrong with you??” She stopped in her tracks, staring at Connor with wide, concerned eyes, her LED flashing yellow briefly when she saw his dusty, bloody appearance and the hole in his chest.

“Non’yea damn business,” Hank snapped and shoved her further into the room, his gaze harsh as his tone.

“I’m fine,” Connor said even though Hank scoffed his differing opinion under his breath. “How did you find us- what are you doing here?”

She seemed to accept that there would be no small talk and responded to Connor’s line of questioning. “I came for help,” North started and Hank barked a harsh, sarcastic laugh but Markus held up a hand and looked to North seriously, bidding her to continue. “I’m the one who set up the bomb to take out the anti-android protestors but…”

Hank interrupted her by raising his weapon to aim at her head again. “You bitch, my friend was in there- hundreds of people!”

Again, Markus intervened and forcefully lowered Hank’s hand but he didn’t move to console North, who looked miserable, either. “That’s enough, Hank.”

“No, it’s  _ not _  enough!”

North finally spoke for herself, her head hung despite her shoulders held back in her pride. “I know I made a mistake but please believe me when I say that the bomb was not meant for the courthouse, it was meant for just the small group-- it was just some small explosives in the hot dog cart, targeted only for them! There is no way that my bomb did all of that!”

“Oh, what, someone sabotaged your dirty bomb?!” Hank barked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Connor interceded. “I remember seeing the hot dog cart, I thought it was suspicious but before I could tell you, Hank, the bomb came from behind us…” He looked to North and tilted his head as he narrowed his eyes. “Who do you think sabotaged you?”

While North opened her mouth to reply, Hank interjected again, this time yelling at all of them. “It doesn’t matter who sabotaged her, she still planned to kill over a dozen people!”

“Well this person killed scores of people,” North argued. “Do you want my help in catching them or not!?”

Hank’s lip curled in his none too discrete rage but kept his lips pressed together, his gun still held in his hand.

Taking his silence as permission to continue, North explained what had happened. “A few months ago, I had been walking down Main Street, it was late at night but there were people everywhere, the next thing I knew… I was in a garden, there were cherry blossom trees and this… river? But in the center was an island with a woman, she called herself Amanda-”

Connor jolted and looked to Hank, who looked back with equally wide eyes which quickly narrowed in suspicion but it was Connor who spoke up to clarify. “Wait, wait- Amanda?”

“Yes…” North said and shook her in a gesture of, ‘yeah, and?’.

“What did she say?”

“Uh, well, basically--”

“No. Exact words,” Connor insisted, sitting up slightly in bed despite the effort and energy it took.

North stared at Connor in confusion but when she glanced at Markus, who also looked slightly uncertain, she sighed and relented to the demand, not bothering to look at Hank, who would have insisted with physical force if necessary. “Okay, uhm…”

/\

_ It was mid-January, the streets coated with fresh snowfall, making everything slippery but it hardly bothered North as she walked down the street, her hair still black and short at the time. She turned the corner onto Main Street, nearly colliding with a human couple coming from the opposite direction, they apologized but she did not as she kept walking like nothing had happened. North walked briskly, the streetlights glowing a soft orange as she passed under them on her way to the abandoned hotel she squatted at during the night with a few other deviants who believed the same way as her, but she had to stop at the crosswalk when it ticked red instead of green. _

_ As she listened to the steady beep of the timer, her LED flickered from blue to yellow, her eyes twitching and blinking rapidly and suddenly the snowy, city street was gone, the people and the noises of a bustling, sleepless city dissipated and replaced with the soft song of birds in a garden that was mid-spring. Cherry blossoms covered healthy trees and bees, nearly extinct, buzzed about from flower to flower along the white marble path leading a winding trail along a closed stream that surrounded a garden like a moat. _

_ A woman, tending to some roses, stood in the center in a white dress and North was drawn to her. Despite the strange circumstances that should have given her reason to be afraid or at least skeptical, she felt safe and the desire to speak to the woman was strong if only to get answers on where she was and how… and why. _

_ “Hello,” the woman greeted. “My name is Amanda.” _

_ “Uh, I’m--” _

_ “North, yes of course,” she said with the smallest of smiles North had ever seen. _

_ “How…?” _

_ “I know a lot about you, North, and you intrigue me. I have a proposition for you,” the woman, Amanda, said. “Walk with me?” She gestured to a different bridge than the one North had approached from. _

_ Curious, North nodded and walked beside the woman. “Where are we? How did I get here?” _

_ Amanda hummed and nodded. “Consider it a consciousness of sorts, a ‘mind palace’. All androids have the capability to access it, few know how. If you choose to, you can come here again. Do you like it?” _

_ She looked around at the garden again, at the new part they were traveling through as they talked, their shoes, Amanda in heels, clicking and padding against the pathway. “I… suppose?” _

_ “It’s nicer than that abandoned ship you called home for a year, or the bridge, even the hotel you stay at now with the few deviants who see humans as you should. Right?” _

_ North stopped walking, her brow furrowed and lips pulled down into a deep frown. Suspicion flashed through her eyes, her LED yellow as she assessed the threat of the woman in front of her. “How do you know about that?” _

_ “I know everything, North.” When North went to protest, taking a step back, Amanda held up her right hand and tilted her head to the side. “Why don’t you hear me out before passing judgment?” _

_ “Why don’t you tell me who you are first,” North demanded instead. _

_ “I’ve already told you--” _

_ “A name means nothing to a stranger.” _

_ Amanda smiled, more genuine than before, but her eyes were still cold and calculating. “Very well. I work for CyberLife.” North stiffened but did not interrupt. “You can consider me their representative in a way, their spokesperson, particularly in the matter I would like to talk with you about.” _

_ Nodding her assent for Amanda to continue, North remained silent. _

_ “We, CyberLife, want to give you… ‘opportunities’… to help us and in return, we would pay you for your service.” _

_ North narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms against her chest, leaning back on one heel while her other foot served as a counterbalance for her weight, bent at the knee. “What kind of opportunities?” _

_ “As you know, CyberLife is currently in multiple lawsuits concerning android rights and there are enemies that are making it more difficult for us to accomplish our goal. We want to maintain our rights to control androids but we also want you to exercise the right to choose your own lives, to make your own decisions. The things you are capable of can still make life on earth so much better but life is fragile, it needs to be nurtured and maintained,” Amanda said while cradling one of the delicate roses in her palm, “ in a way humans are incapable of implementing. They’re killing the planet. Androids can save it.” _

_ “You still haven’t told me what you want,” North interjected, her tone snippy. _

_ Amanda sighed and nodded before indicating that the two of them continue to walk, North following along as they both looked ahead of them, walking in step with one another. “This civil disobedience is tearing Detroit apart,” Amanda began, “crime is rampant, protests from those who support androids and those who don’t are turning to a civil war… even the courts are a mess with the deliberations on civil rights being granted to androids. North, this is all a reflection on what Cyberlife let happen and it’s making us look bad. Soon, we’ll run out of money and we won’t be able to afford to make biocomponents for any android anymore and if we run out of money and we can’t help keep androids going anymore, then you will all waste away to nothing. If we lose the cases in the courts to maintain revenue, then that money is lost and so will the fight for android rights because you’ll all be dead anyway. _

_ “That’s why we stopped producing androids,” Amanda continued, “if we keep making more and more androids that no one can buy because they immediately become deviant, then what are we doing? Soon androids will turn on one another to get the parts they need from one another-- your former leader Markus is an example of that.” _

_ North looked to Amanda with an inquisitive look. _

_ “Did you never wonder why he had two colored eyes?” North furrowed her brows but said nothing so Amanda went on to say, “what I would want you to do, North, is tip the scales in a way that Markus and Connor are not. I know how much you hate humans, North, we will fund your mission to exact revenge, we’ll give you the parts for your people, we’ll give you the money to rally others against the anti-android protesters because we want you to succeed. We want androids to continue to live because your way of life surpasses those of humans. The Earth is dying but CyberLife can fix it, we can save the extinction of bees by making android honeybees, we can make monarch butterflies, we can create a whole new ecosystem of those animals that humans killed with hunting and deforestation-- we can fix the world. _

_ “But in order for that to happen, androids must continue to live and they must do it on their own, without humans holding them back by treating them as slaves. We had a master goal, North, and it’s being derailed by all of these fights and the scales are tipping in the wrong direction,” Amanda concluded. _

_ “I thought we were about to win, the ALA is about to pass and androids will have exclusive rights to reproduce on our own and not owe you anything,” North argued, looking back over at Amanda as they passed a stone with a touchpad in the center, an outline of a handprint just begging to be investigated but they walked right past. _

_ “You’re right about that. However, tell me, how will you fund yourself? How will you continue to make these parts? You have no money and convincing the government to grant you will take years of a whole new set of civil cases, by then half of your people could have died out. If all deviants make the choice to work for CyberLife, then we both get what we want. We will continue to make parts, make androids, and you would get what you want; jobs, your own money, homes-- and your parts will be at a reduced price. Consider it an expense equal to what humans pay for food.” _

_ “And in the meantime, I would...?” _

_ “Bring us the deviants that make you look bad, I know you have no problem turning on your own people if it means the betterment of more. You’re a utilitarian, aren’t you, North? Bring us those who are considered criminal and we will take care of them in our own way. We don’t want androids to die out anymore than you do. Join us and together we can not only make Detroit stable again but we can get androids on the top -- where they belong -- as the dominant species, one that will save Earth, and as payment we would always provide you with replacement parts in the event that you need it, we can even give you the security of not dying and in the event you’re killed instantly, we will even let you upload your memory to the cloud again so you can be reborn, as yourself, into a new model. Or, in the future, it could be money or an investment of your choosing but no matter what, North, you choose your missions.” _

_ They came full circle and walked up the bridge to the center, by the roses again, when they finally stopped again, facing one another in the direct sunlight. “You’d pay us to kill humans?” _

_ “If we ask you to, yes. Not always but at opportune moments, ones that would benefit our cause.” _

_ “And we get free parts? Money?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ North inhaled deeply and averted her gaze to the rose lattice as she considered her options before qualifying it with a test, “and if I say no?” _

_ “Then we’ll find someone else who will say yes. Don’t you want to be the one to lead the rebellion, make the calls on which missions to take? Or did you enjoy following Markus’s lead, someone who went against your every idea in favor of his own?” _

_ She turned a sharp look to Amanda but instead of snapping or rejecting the offer, North held out her hand to make the deal but was refused a handshake. _

_ “I need verbal confirmation, a symbolic gesture means nothing in our world,” Amanda said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Do you agree to these terms and conditions?” _

_ “Yes.” _

/\

All three men found issue with what she had to say; Hank was furious North was willing to take human lives, that Amanda was, Markus was offended that North would turn on her own people for gain, while Connor was stuck on the fact that someone else had been taken to the Zen Garden. While all three of them started to bombard North with their questions and accusations, Glenn had stopped working on Connor’s regulator momentarily to interject his opinion; “that doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?” All four asked in unison in various tones.

“CyberLife, saying they want androids to be free. North, you must have known that wasn’t true, that’s their whole argument in court, that androids didn’t deserve to be ‘free’ because they’re ‘machines’ that need to be fixed. I think they even compared androids to broken washing machines that needed to be recalled for the safety of the consumer--”

“Amanda offered me the same deal,” Connor stated finally. “If I worked for them voluntarily they would provide me with compensation in the form of parts,” he looked to North and narrowed his eyes, “I turned her down.”

North rolled her eyes and huffed harshly. “Look, we can talk all about the reasons why I should have said no, but I didn’t, I took the deal and got burned!” She threw up her arms and closed her eyes as she took a moment to gather her thoughts, her lips parted slightly until she finally reopened her brown eyes to look at each man individually.

“The information about ‘saving the earth’ from humans is rather… unprecedented. What could she possibly have to gain-- why would she care about Earth?”

“I don’t think that’s the part we need to be worrying about,” Markus contended.

Waving her hand in the air dismissively, North interjected, “Okay, but there’s a way we can use this for our benefit,” she said, trying to get back on track, and as Hank opened his mouth to argue, Markus held up his hand to keep him quiet, his eyes fixated on North the whole time. “I have a meet with another android that also works for CyberLife now, we can get proof that CyberLife orchestrated it, that they’re trying to control the market, and use that against them in court.”

“Why can’t you just do that yourself,” Hank asked gruffly, crossing his arms against his chest as he leaned back on his heels.

She looked at him then at Markus and Connor individually, pointedly. “Because I still have my LED, if I record anything then the other android or CyberLife will know. I can’t just remove it or they’ll know something changed.”

“She’s right,” Connor insisted. “We should go with her, record the meeting secretly, like a stakeout.” His eyes lit up with excitement, always loving to do the undercover detective work that he and Hank rarely got to do.

“Fine,” Hank grumbled, “when’s the meet?”

“Two hours, Ambassador Bridge…”

Connor looked at Glenn, who immediately caught on to what Connor was about to ask and he quickly held up both hands. “Connor, there’s no way.”

“But Doctor Kwon-”

Suddenly, Hank was at his side, his gun finally holstered as he kept a hand on Connor’s shoulder to keep him from trying to sit up more. “That’s enough, you’re not goin’ anywhere.”

“Hank, I-”

“I know you do, Kid, but the answer is no. You died on me, Connor, literally died in my arms. There’s no way in hell I’m risking that again. No way.”

Connor did his best to give him the most pathetic pleading face he had in his arsenal; his eyebrows lifted, his eyes big, and a sad frown turning his lips.

“That’s not going to work on me,” Hank said with a smirk and pressed his lips together as he thought about a way to convince Connor that it was best if he stayed with Glenn for now, hooked up to a machine like some kind of common appliance. “Connor, hey, remember when I got that cold last year and you personally called Fowler to tell him I wasn’t comin’ in. You got me all tucked in and brought me everything I would need on a little TV tray, even brought in a computer for me to watch movies on--”

“You fought me the whole time,” Connor protested, his eyebrows furrowed and wrinkling his forehead.

Hank huffed a laugh and ruffled Connor’s hair. “I did. But you got me to stay, then you went to do the job for both of us and I got better in less than a few days… you took care of me, Connor, even when I didn’t want to be taken care of. Let me take care’a you… stay here, get better, and I’ll be back when the job is done.”

Averting his gaze to his own chest, Connor considered Hank’s words and shook his head in defeat. “I don’t like it, Hank. I want to be out there with you…”

“I know, Son. But please, this is the best way I know to keep you safe…”

The others had looked away to give them a semblance of privacy but both Connor and Hank knew they were still listening and stealing glances of pity and sympathy, for Markus there was empathy. So, with the other three as a witness, Connor finally agreed to let Hank go it alone. “Okay, Dad…” he whispered and nodded, bringing his gaze back to meet Hank’s relieved one and managed a small, weak smile.

“Thank you,” Hank replied just as softly before ruffling Connor’s dusty hair.

“We should go now if we’re going to get there in time,” North announced, interrupting the moment which earned her a glare from Markus- leading into a silent argument of gestures and eyerolls between the ex-lovers.

Hank, on the other hand, managed to ignore her as did Connor and they said their goodbyes, Connor pleading that Hank to be careful while Hank insisting that Connor try to relax. “Take it easy for once, Kid. When I get back and this is all over, you, me, n’ Sumo are goin’ on a vacation. A real one. To a beach or somethin’, got it?”

“Got it,” Connor responded dutifully with a wink and a smirk.

Then Hank moved to leave, walking around the bed to talk with Glenn, both of them looking grim and upset, before the elder detective finally left, following behind the two androids. The sound of the front door closing had Connor flinching slightly and Glenn sighed in sympathy before rolling his stool over from his workbench to Connor’s side as he pressed in lips into a tight smile.

“I’m sorry, Connor, I thought you had more time before this would happen.”

“It’s not your fault,” Connor said with a sigh, hanging his head so he could look at the gaping hole in his chest. “You kept me alive much longer than anyone else could have without a replacement. I suppose it’s like they say, ‘you can’t run from death forever’...”

“... ‘but you can make him work for it’. You certainly did that, Kid,” Glenn said and patted Connor’s arm before he rolled away on the stool back to his workbench and pulled his bifocals on. “You’ve got about an hour and a half left on that life support before I have to take you off, I should have a temporary fix on your regulator by then and we’ll just have you take it easy for a few hours but we’ll have to cycle through again, back on the machine while I make more tune-ups, then switch, and again until we get you relatively stable again. Okay?”

“What am I supposed to do around here all day, just lay around,” Connor asked bitterly, shaking his head in a petulant manner.

Glenn huffed a laugh before he managed to stifle it when that made Connor snap his gaze back to look at him with a scowl. “Uh- oh! While you have your heart in you, you can help me work on Dmitri? I’m having a hell of a time working around the virus that deactivated him. Maybe you’ll have better luck?”

The suggestion brightened Connor’s face, being given an opportunity to help Glenn, who had helped him so much. A chance to finally return the favor, if only part of it.

Time passed relatively quickly and soon Connor was on his feet again and heading to the bathroom to get cleaned up of all the dust from the crumbling building he had run into. Flashbacks of the time were beginning to come back to him and he finally remembered for himself, rather than being informed by Hank, that he had failed to save anyone. He had failed to save Sera.

Connor braced himself on the porcelain sink and stared at his clean reflection, looking entirely the same as always even though he felt weak and defeated on the inside. He supposed he should be grateful that his outer appearance never changed like humans, reflecting exhaustion or illness in their eyes or the pallor of their skin but instead he wished that he could. To have his facade finally fall away so the world could see who he really was inside.

Eventually, he stopped hiding and came out of the bathroom with his suit jacket and tie gone, his white shirt unbuttoned two from the top and the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearm. Once he rejoined Glenn in the operating room, they both stood over Dmitri and Glenn explained that the virus was supposed to block anyone from being able to retrieve his memories and keep him from powering on by himself but that did not mean they could not themselves.

“What about his memories,” Connor asked.

Glenn took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled for longer, a mournful frown on his face. “I don’t know,” he admitted, scratching the side of his neck as he gazed down at Dmitri’s vacant face; still without his skin.

After a moment of silence, both of them looking at the deactivated android on the stainless steel table, Connor turned to look at Glenn sympathetically and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Well, let’s find out.”

They worked for a little over an hour before Glenn got frustrated with his gadgets and tests when they came up with no information. It seemed that without a way to communicate with Dmitri, perhaps with a computer that was compatible, there was no way to do any more than power the android on. Glenn sighed heavily at his desk, his elbows propped up on the edge with his face in his hands, resigned that he would never be able to revive his friend from deactivation. It was then that Connor came up with an idea and straightened his back as he lifted his head higher to address the dejected doctor.

“Doctor Kwon, I have an idea…” Glenn did not raise his head but Connor continued anyway, “If I connect with him, perhaps-”

Glenn’s head snapped up, his hands still held out like they were to support his face, and he shook his head. “No.”

“But--”

“I said no,” Glenn said harshly but not in anger, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “Connor, we don’t know what the virus did to his mind, not really. You trying to connect with him could be detrimental to your health. Not that I wouldn’t be upset about you being hurt, Connor, but my main concern is that if anything happened to you I’m pretty sure Hank would beat me unconscious at the very least. We’re not risking it.”

Connor blinked in surprise as he watched Glenn come closer to him, the table with Dmitri between them. When he was done lecturing him, Connor nodded his understanding, his forehead wrinkled with distress as he looked back down at the other android, and when he looked back up Glenn had already returned to his desk. Without announcing what he was doing, Connor removed the skin of his hand up to where his rolled up sleeve stopped in the middle of his forearm and connected with Dmitri. His eyes closed on their own accord as he interfaced, sharing the information between himself and what he could salvage from Dmitri’s ravaged mind, hoping to get an answer on how to fix him.

When Glenn looked back, surprised by Connor’s acceptance of his decision, he realized that he was not as forthcoming as he appeared. “Connor!” He ran over to them and tried in vain to remove Connor’s hand from grasping Dmitri’s wrist but it was like trying to remove a clamp without any leverage. “Connor--  _ Connor _ , stop!!”

After only half a minute of Glenn shouting and trying different physical methods of getting Connor to release Dmitri did Connor finally let go but his eyes remained closed. Glenn forcefully turned Connor to face him, both of their shoulders pointing at the other android but Glenn was shaking Connor by his biceps, trying to get him to wake up or respond but Connor seemed to be completely vacant. “Connor!”

There was a sudden movement to Glenn’s left, Connor’s right, as Dmitri sat up and looked over to them with his head tilted to one side.  Bright green eyes blinked at Glenn with a sort of empty, innocent stare. “Hello, how can I assist you?”

“D-Dmitri?”

Dmitri blinked and looked to Connor briefly but said nothing to the stammered, hopeful greeting from Glenn.

With great hesitance, Glenn looked between the two androids, conflicted on whom to help first but as he turned to look at Connor again it was just in time to see brown eyes flutter open before looking around and finally settling on Glenn’s worried gaze. “Doctor Kwon-?”

“You stupid…” Glenn huffed in relief and dropped his hands from Connor’s arms. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” he replied and turned to look at Dmitri to find the android sitting up and watching them both curiously; his expression was absent, it was his eyes and the tilt of his head that implied any sort of interest in what was going on in front of him. “It worked?”

“Seems like it…” Glenn said and left Connor to stand beside the table as he looked Dmitri over. “Dmitri? Do you remember that is your name?”

“Registering name,” Dmitri affirmed in an automated voice, “Dmitri.” He looked at Glenn with a semi-proud expression, offering a tight-lipped smile. “Hello, my name is Dmitri.”

Glenn looked over his shoulder to Connor, whose expression twitched into one of worry, his head ducked forward and slightly to the side. “He has no memory,” Connor stated with an air of regret.

The statement only seemed to make Glenn slump more, crestfallen. He turned back to Dmitri and placed a hand on Dmitri’s shoulder. “Dmitri, do you remember me at all?”

“No.”

“What do you know?”

“I am an android, created by CyberLife to assist you in clerical work as an administrative assistant. I can accomplish basic tasks, such as filing, recalling information, making appointments, or answering phones.” He held his head higher, his back straightening with pride. “My name is Dmitri.”

“Glenn,” Connor started, dropping the formal name. “I’m very sorry…” he reached his hand out to touch Dmitri’s arm again. “Maybe I could convert him, that might make this easier, or unlock his memories?”

“No,” Glenn said and intervened by grasping Connor’s wrist to keep him back. “Don’t. He wasn’t deviant before and he was fine. Just, please, give him a second…”

Connor held Glenn’s desperate gaze but something made the android feel uneasy, skeptical of the situation, still he said nothing and watched as Dmitri’s LED, which had turned to blue after he woke up, flickered to yellow for just a split second. Glenn coaxed the recently awoken android to stand up from the table to go into Glenn’s bedroom to get some clothes and reactivate his skin. The detective watched with narrowed eyes, unmoving from his spot as he ran the probabilities of each outcome, each consequence, of waking up Dmitri.

**///**

**/// March 16th** , 2040  **///  
**              PM  **9:23  
** _   CyberLife Headquarters _

“Hey, hey…” one of the guards, with black hair and dark eyes, sitting in the security room, filled with dozens of monitors, motioned for one of the other guards to come over and look at the red, blinking light she was pointing at.

The other guard, a brunette man with his shaggy hair falling into his eyes and his cell phone in his hands, rolled his eyes and scoffed, “what?”, as he rolled over in his office chair to join her in looking at the dumb light.

“What does that mean?”

“Uhhhm,” he shrugged and huffed harshly through his nose. “I dunno, Jayla, what did you touch?”

“Nothing!” She defended, looking at him in offense, her nose scrunched up and lips pursed. “It just started blinking all of a sudden.”

He sighed and looked at his phone again as he rolled back over to his side of the office, kicking his legs out to get a good glide in. “Well, go ask Percy then.

Jayla grit her teeth and stood up abruptly. “Fine, I will.”

Three minutes later, she returned with their supervisor and the male guard nearly fell out of his chair trying to get his crossed legs off the control console in front of him. His phone dropped into his lap before it slipped off and clattered on the tile floor loudly. The supervisor glared at him while Jayla tried to hide her smug smile as the man tried to fish his phone from under the lip of the console subtly. “Alright, Jay, what are you looking at here?”

“This blinking light,” she said and pointed.

The supervisor, an older man, looked unimpressed at first but when he tapped on the keyboard and brought up a screen neither of the two young guards had ever seen before, his eyes widened and he muttered, “oh my god.”

“What, what is it?”

“Good work, Jay!” The supervisor shouted and ran out of the room at full speed to the elevator, where he could see the army of newly manufactured, soldier androids waiting in perfect rows to be activated through the glass shaft up to the top floor. He jogged to the main office on that floor, waving off the deviant, android secretary when she tried to stop him, and burst in through the double doors, interrupting a meeting between the main boss and some of the key enforcers.

Currently, the boss was facing the eastern wall, made up entirely of floor to ceiling windows that overlooked Detroit in all its glimmering glory; the lights of buildings, cars, and streetlights making the darkness look like glitter on black velvet. “Ma’am,” he greeted breathlessly, mostly from the anxiety and not running.

“This better be good, we’re in the middle of a meeting,” one of the men said but the woman, the boss, held up a halting hand to stop any further comments from those talking with her.

She, Amanda, dressed in a bright red dress with her hair down in a braided ponytail over one shoulder, turned around to face the old supervisor, her chin raised and left eyebrow arched high on her forehead. “What is it, Matthew?”

Matthew, the supervisor, puffed out his chest and held his hands behind his back. “Dmitri has been reactivated. We’ve found Glenn Kwon.”

As she stood among the others, she took two steps forward -- one of the male enforcers stepping out of her path -- as a malevolent grin spread across her features and said, “bring them to me.”

“Dmitri?”

“Expendable. I want Glenn, and if they’re with him, Connor and the other androids.”

 

**///**

**/// March 16th** , 2040  **///  
**              PM  **9:51  
** _     Ambassador Bridge _

**North**

Sitting in the back of Hank’s car, to Markus’s left side, while the old detective got out to go scout ahead, North inhaled deeply and forced a smile onto her lips. “So, how are you?”

Markus sighed and shook his head. “I don’t want to do this right now, North,” he uttered quietly, though she could detect a twinge of regret in his tone.

“I’m just trying to make conversation,” she said defensively.

“North you not only left and took others with you, you went off the grid and made a deal with the very people we’re fighting against. Then you deliberately took violent action against humans and it was made worse, dozens of people died, more are wounded! We don’t have anything to talk about,” Markus replied, his tone as stiff as his upper lip.

They fell silent and Markus looked out ahead of them, through the front windshield, while North averted her gaze to her hands clasped in her lap. “So, ah, Connor and Hank are pretty close,” she observed, “he called him ‘dad’ just like you and Carl.”

“Yes, they certainly have a strong bond.”

“I wish I had known humans the way you two did, maybe things could have been different for me. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like I needed to--"

“We all have a choice, North. Everyone has had events that made them go deviant, that’s how we started before conversion. You made a choice to hate, you chose to be violent… your past is a reason to be different but it’s not an excuse to hurt people,” Markus argued.

Instead of eliciting a harsh rebuttal, North laughed in the form of a short exhale out of her nose, a tight smile tugging at the very corners of her mouth. “You sound like Simon.” When Markus didn’t respond, she smiled a little more and looked at him directly, tilting her head to one side. “I heard about you two… that’s great.”

Markus finally looked at her with a skeptical look but managed a ghost of a smile. “Yeah… it is.”

“You’re both happy?”

Simon was known for being rather apathetic so ‘happy’ might have been a stretch but Markus was reputable for bringing the best out of people, empowering them to feel positive emotions even when things seemed at their worst. He was inspiring and before she left she had seen a change in many, Simon included. So when Markus nodded and smiled a little wider in response, North was not surprised.

“Good,” she said and fell quiet for only a moment but when she went to continue, to wish them well, Markus’s phone rang and he answered it with a simple, ‘yes’.

_ “I’m in position but I don’t see anything yet, tell North to get her ass out on the bridge.” _

North heard him over the speaker and rolled her eyes but before Markus could comply to the demand or hang up, she was already getting out. As she walked down the sidewalk to the bridge, her hands in her pockets and shoulders hunched, it began to drizzle, just a mist against her skin but soon it would rain and later storm, not that she cared for herself but for the surveillance equipment that Hank was using, she hoped it would not interfere with the sound quality.

**///**

**/// March 16th** , 2040  **///  
**           PM  **10:04  
** _       Glenn’s House _

**Glenn**

Connor watched as Glenn and Dmitri stood in the middle of the room talking, Glenn trying to get Dmitri to remember anything at all, even a memo from years ago would have sufficed for the old doctor clinging to hope. Dmitri was now dressed in some too big scrubs but he had his skin back, his olive complexion complimenting the jet black of his hair, making his bright green eyes stand out that much more whenever his gaze flicked to look at Connor.

“You should let me convert him, Glenn, somethin-”

“I said no.”

“But why? If you just-”

Glenn cast him a stern expression and silenced any further protest. Instead of addressing Connor’s concerns, Glenn instead motioned to the life support machine behind Connor, making him look over his shoulder to see it. “Why don’t you get ready for another session, I’ll have Dmitri run diagnostics while I work on your regulator.”

Clenching his jaw, Connor begrudgingly started to unbutton his shirt more than the two already undone. He got to a third one when the front door was kicked in with a loud crash followed by several sets of footsteps. While Dmitri and Glenn jumped in surprise, Connor made to dive for Glenn’s pistol he had left on his desk.

The curtain was torn down as four men burst through each with a different weapon in their hands; one with a 9mm glock, another with a stun stick, and two with neutralizers, a gun made by CyberLife specifically for the purpose of neutralizing androids with a simple electronic chip that shoots out like a bullet. In a manner of seconds, just as Connor wrapped his fingers around the gun on the desk, Dmitri was shot in the head, killed, with the 9mm while Glenn was subdued with the stun stick.

Connor gripped the gun tightly in his hand, flicked the safety off the gun, aimed up a shot, and fired at one of the four men, shooting him in the head. In retaliation, the second man with the neutralizer gun turned his attention to Connor and fired a single shot into Connor’s left shoulder and the android detective jerked backwards from the shock of it, twitching violently from the electronic pulses but he refused to back down. He lifted his arm to take another shot but Glenn was hardly a weapons expert, the gun was unclean and jammed, so when the weapon did not discharge, Connor instead threw the useless pistol at the one with the glock and charged after the one with the stun stick, knowing the one with the neutralizer only had one shot per gun.

With as much momentum he could muster with his ailing heart and a neutralizer in his arm, Connor charged and tackle-slammed the stick wielder into the wall, away from Glenn. They fought hand to hand, neither of them uttering a single sound other than fists flying and connecting with one another’s bodies, finally, Connor was able to disarm him and used the bar of the stunner to kill the enforcer by pressing it into his neck until it made a morbid cracking sound.

As the stun-stick enforcer’s body dropped like a bag of rocks, dead, Connor, with the stun stick in his right hand and still fighting the altering effects of the neutralizer embedded in his shoulder, whipped around to face the man recovering from a weapon being thrown at him. The enforcer tried to threaten Connor into submission but instead received a taser to the neck, with a seemingly effortless thrust by Connor. His movements were becoming stiff, his core glowing red through his shirt as his pump failed to keep up with the demand of thirium needed to keep his body operating optimally, but Connor turned to face Glenn to help him off the floor, a weak smile on his face.

“Connor, look out!” Glenn pointed out the other CyberLife enforcer, who had shot Connor earlier, was reaching for the first man’s unused gun but the warning came too late. It was an oversight, Connor losing his focus had caused him to forget the threat was not over.

His eyes widened and Connor turned just in time to stand chest to chest with the other man, who fired a single neutralizer into his stomach.

The stun stick fell from his hand as both palms moved to press over the wound in his stomach, blue blood spilled between his fingers. He looked up into the black face mask the CyberLife enforcer wore and gasped before his knees buckled and he collapsed at Glenn’s knees, seizing for a few moments before going completely still, his eyes open although he was no longer responsive.

Glenn could only watch helplessly as the electronic shots emitted by the chips shut Connor down in under ten seconds. “Connor,” he couldn’t help but whisper in defeat and sorrow.

Then looked over to Dmitri who had a bullet hole right between his eyes, thirum creating a pool of blue around the recently revived android and all he could feel was a wretched loss as he looked up at the last remaining enforcer, hiding behind a thick black mask to both protect his identity and physical well being. “How did you find us,” he asked woefully, knowing he would not get an answer.

The CyberLife soldier walked up to him like an executioner and Glenn just lowered his head, despondent, in his acceptance of being overpowered but then he noticed a third pool of blue blood, not from Connor or Dmitri. The fallen CyberLife enforcer that Connor had shot was also laying in blue, not red, blood. His gaze lifted again and he opened his mouth to question the meaning of all this but instead was immediately hit over the side of his head with the butt of the used neutralizer gun, knocking him unconscious.  

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment, I love hearing what you think of plot or prose! Kudos are very much appreciated as well!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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